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Saakashvili, 53, was taken to a prison hospital five weeks after declaring a hunger strike in prison, authorities said.
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been taken to a prison hospital, authorities say, just over five weeks after the start of the hunger strike.
Saakashvili, 53, was arrested on Oct. 1 this year after returning to Georgia on the eve of the local election to rally opposition to what he described as a mission to save the country.
“As a result of Mikheil Saakashvili’s deteriorating health and a greater risk to (his) safety, he was taken from prison number 12 to medical facility number 18,” the Georgia prison department said in a statement. Monday.
The announcement was that his supporters were preparing to meet in Tbilisi to be hospitalized in a civilian clinic – on the advice of doctors – instead of in a prison hospital.
Earlier Monday, doctors who examined Saakashvili said he “was at high risk for systemic complications and urgently … needed to be treated in a high-tech clinic.”
Georgia rights ombudsman Nino Lomjaria said the prison hospital did not meet medical criteria.
Saakashvili was imprisoned in the town of Rustavi, south of the capital Tbilisi.
He has refused to eat for 39 days to protest his imprisonment, saying he has a political reason.
He faces up to six years in prison after being tried in absentia in 2018 for abusing his position during his time as former president of the Soviet Republic from 2004 to 2013 – a position he dismissed as a political motivation.
President Salome Zourabichvili said last week that Saakashvili returned with the intention of destabilizing Georgia’s politics and that he would never be forgiven.
But he said that given his high public interest in his case, he should be recognized as a special prisoner and the authorities should take all possible measures to “prevent his health deterioration from being used for political speculation or destabilization”.
A lawyer for Saakashvili did not immediately comment on his transfer.
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